When AI Makes Dentists Sound the Same (E.338)

Read enough dental marketing and you start noticing the same phrases, the same structure, even the same tone.

Benjamin Lund, Internal Communications & PR Manager at Productive Dentist Academy, has spent more than 20 years writing, editing, and working in dental media and marketing, including several years as editor of Dentaltown magazine. That experience has given him a close-up view of how dentists communicate, what makes a voice feel authentic, and what can disappear when the writing becomes too polished or predictable.

Ben joins Regan Robertson and Sara Hansen to talk about what gets lost when AI starts doing too much of the writing for a doctor, and how dentists can use it without handing over the thinking, personality, and point of view that make their message their own.

“You are the source material. It’ll help organize your thoughts, but just don’t let it replace your thoughts.” – Benjamin Lund

Episode Overview

A dentist can spend years developing a philosophy, learning how to talk with patients, and figuring out what they believe about care.

Then their marketing goes out and sounds like every other practice in town.

Ben explains why AI tends to fall back on predictable writing patterns, how to recognize them, and why the bigger issue goes beyond awkward copy.

If you could replace Dr. Smith’s name with Dr. Johnson’s and nothing else needs to change, something important is missing.

What This Episode Reveals

Ben draws a line between sounding authoritative and having earned authority.

AI can produce polished language about almost anything. It does not have your years in the operatory, the patient conversations that changed your thinking, or the reasons you practice the way you do.

Those details are where the substance comes from.

What You’ll Learn

• The writing patterns that immediately make Ben suspicious of AI
• Why dentists are starting to sound interchangeable online
• What doctors should provide before AI ever touches the copy
• How AI can help organize your thinking without doing the thinking for you
• What to ask an agency creating content under your name

If This Sounds Familiar

Look at your latest website page, article, or social post.
Could another dentist put their name on it without changing much?
Would you actually say those words to a patient?
If the answer makes you uncomfortable, this episode is worth hearing.

Next Steps

Take one piece of marketing currently running under your name and ask:

What did someone learn about me that made this specifically mine?

That is one of Ben’s strongest questions for doctors to take back to their marketing company.

Ask where AI is being used, how they are learning your voice, who reviews the final copy, and what happens when something does not sound like you.

Want Your Marketing to Sound More Like You?

Book a conversation with Sara Hansen to take a closer look at your current marketing and where your practice’s real voice may be getting lost.

Book a Marketing Consultation with Sara:
https://calendly.com/phoenix-sara-hansen/marketing-consultation?month=2026-08

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TRANSCRIPT

00:00:02 Benjamin Lund: The eye is a really cool assistant, but you just don’t. Don’t use it for your source material. You are the source material, you know. Yeah. Help it. It’ll help organize your thoughts, but just don’t let it replace your thoughts.

00:00:19 Regan Robertson: Thanks for tuning in to the Everyday Practice of Dental Podcast. I’m Regan Robertson, my co-host, Sarah Hanson, and I interview real dentists and experts who grow their dental practices using authentic marketing in a way that you can remember, repeat, and use in your own practice to get the patients you deserve. Let’s dive in. Doctor, if you think that using AI to write your articles or produce your marketing content saves you time, you are right. Unfortunately, it may also be quietly replacing your authentic voice and lessening your impact in the market. What you think you are saving might cost you much more than you deserve, and that is exactly why Sarah and I have invited an incredibly esteemed guest, Benjamin Lund. He is a productive dentist Academy’s PR and media strategist, director guru. I, I all the all the words. Things. Yeah. Yeah. I don’t I don’t mean that in an exaggerated tone. Uh, Ben comes to us with, like, thirty years of journalistic experience. I look to him, uh, for writing. He is responsible for many of the magazine covers that you read across the dental industry. And he knows how to tell an authentic story and how to apply AI in a smart way so that your authentic voice is protected and you make the impact that you are looking to make. Hi, Sarah. By the way, before we introduce Ben.

00:01:39 Sara Hansen: Hey, Regan, how are you?

00:01:41 Regan Robertson: Well, you know, I’m excited as all get out to be on this call today.

00:01:45 Sara Hansen: I am too, Ben is one of my favorite people, so let’s get going.

00:01:49 Benjamin Lund: Yeah.

00:01:50 Regan Robertson: Okay. Ben.

00:01:50 Benjamin Lund: Flushing.

00:01:51 Regan Robertson: Uh, welcome to Everyday Practices dental podcast. We’re so glad that you’re a guest and thankful that you’re taking the time, because this is a topic that all three of us, we dish about it often. Um, it really grinds our gears in the best way because we all like AI for certain applications. But to help our listeners today apply it in a way that actually works. Tell us, tell us from your perspective, Ben, and all of the, the journalism history that you have and experience, um, what you’re seeing right now.

00:02:21 Benjamin Lund: Um, there’s so much, I mean, AI is completely changed the way everybody does everything, the way we read and write and, uh, just how it’s, it’s kicking out information and absorbing and trying to figure out who we are and what we’re trying to do with it. I could go on and on about that, but like, you know, um, I think there’s a little confusion right now as to what AI is. Everybody thinks AI is actually artificial intelligence, that it’s actually this entity that is, um, that is thinking for us and, uh, either wants the best for us or well, it really just depends on how you have your AI configured. But, um, like, like it can do these things for us, but all it is, all AI is chat. Claude every, it’s all it is, is predictive, uh, copy on steroids. That’s it. That’s all it is. Um, but it’s somebody.

00:03:37 Regan Robertson: I heard somebody call it a word calculator. Ben. And I thought that is such a great way to think about it as a.

00:03:43 Benjamin Lund: That’s what it is and what it, what it wants to do is predict the outcome of what we’re inputting. So if we give it something vague or broad. It’s going to come up with the solution that it took the least resistance in order to get there. Right. The more detailed you are, yeah, it’ll it’ll come back with something a little bit closer to what you want. But if you wanted to do something long, like an article, it might start off strong. But toward the end you’re just going to get a series of bullet points. Um, and, um, you know, a lot of the tells and a lot of the patterns that it tends to fall back on. Um, we’ve, I think we’ve talked for hours about polarity statements, right?

00:04:47 Sara Hansen: Ben, give our doctors an example of a polarity statement and let’s see if they can recognize any of these.

00:04:56 Benjamin Lund: So I’m not, um, I should have some dental examples. Um, last night I was on Instagram and, uh, I’ve been viewing these quantum physics, uh, accounts and they’re interesting, but every other sentence is a polarity statement. Uh, it’s, it’s not x, it’s y. So you’re seeing things like, you know, some problems aren’t slow, they’re impossible. Or, um, objects aren’t solid. They’re vibrating probability fields. Matter isn’t matter. It’s math. Like, come on. And we’re seeing it across everything. It’s not just dental or quantum physics. Yeah. It’s everywhere. And now people are starting to talk like that.

00:05:52 Sara Hansen: Yeah. You know what’s interesting, Ben? I talked to dozens of doctors a week. And one of the things, you know, as we go through their current marketing or what current marketing could look like for them, what I’m finding interesting. So I’d like to get your perspective on this is that you almost could replace the doctor’s name and they have the exact same messaging. They have the exact same type of ad layout. What, like you said, those, those statements that are, you know, not that they’re not true, but it’s not necessarily how the doctor would sound or how they even talk to their patients. So I would like to know, you know, what does that look like? As you’ve been a writer in the dental industry for so long, like how I feel like now it’s changing the way that marketing actually looks for so many doctors. And we’re, we’re losing part of that identity of the practice because now their marketing messaging is sounding all the same.

00:06:54 Benjamin Lund: You know, it’s, um, it’s the difference between sounding authoritative and having earned authority. Which when you pair it all down, it’s the difference between style versus substance. Okay, so I could sound authoritative about any subject in the world, and I could write about it forever and sound like I know what I’m talking about when I don’t. Like, I can write mellifluous prose all day long and still not know what the heck I’m talking about. I’m a pro at that, actually. I’m really good at that. Uh, but we’re talking about the style versus the actual substance. Um, like who you are, what do you stand for? What do you provide to your patients, to your community, um, to people you care about. And what do you care about, right.

00:07:58 Sara Hansen: Yeah.

00:07:59 Benjamin Lund: This is the stuff that isn’t coming through in these marketing campaigns. And like you said, you can interchange, you can take out Doctor Smith and put in Doctor Johnson. And yeah, they all, they all sound the same. But what makes Doctor Smith different from Doctor Johnson. Is it, is it his um is it his personal philosophy. Did something happen to him that made that made him become a dentist. Um are there specific patients that he or she, uh, prefers seeing because they’re the people that they’ve got the clinical skill to take care of them Or um you know, they um. Losing my train of thought here, but you know what I’m saying, right. Like, yeah.

00:08:58 Sara Hansen: That’s differentiating factor of yeah. Who they are.

00:09:01 Benjamin Lund: Who are you and what do you stand for? Um, yeah. Like, yeah, you can, you can say, hey, you know, we, we love seeing families. We would take care of kids. And, you know, if you need an implant, we’ll take care. Good, great. Everybody else does. Everybody else does. That’s fine.

00:09:19 Sara Hansen: Right. It’s that what else the what else? So, Ben, you and I worked together for a very long time. And my strength is not writing. But your strength is. So I am very lucky that I get to have you help me with a lot of client content. But you are in the unique position working with our doctors that you actually get to create and write their stories. Is there any doctors over the last several years that maybe stick out to you, that you could speak to that? What else in marketing and kind of how you wrote about it? And then I can even speak to that point of what we did within that marketing strategy to execute that. Like, let’s kind of go through that funnel of what that looks like. Is there a story that sticks out to you that we could kind of work through a little bit?

00:10:11 Benjamin Lund: Yes. Actually, now that you mention it, so it was when I just had started working with you at PDA, and you had asked me to put some content together for doctor nor with Forever Smiles. Right. Mhm. Um, and like his story touched. Well, no, it didn’t just touch my heart. It first, it broke my heart, but then it then it touched my heart. So we, we found out that his young daughter had passed away tragically. And, um, I mean, even even just thinking about it just makes me tear up. I have daughters, and I can’t even imagine, uh, what they went through. Right. And, um, what, what made their story even more touching was how the community embraced him and his family and, like, wrapped their arms around them while they were going through probably the lowest point of their lives, you know, and how they, they, and they just they uplifted him in his family. And like his practice is called forever smiles to not only honor his daughter, but the community that he serves. And, um, I was privileged to get to write saw some content for for him, not just in marketing, but, um, his website and, and in other areas. And I, I’ve never forgotten about it. Uh, yeah. Yeah.

00:12:00 Sara Hansen: Yeah. And what I remember too, about when we were meeting with him was he that actually led him to a complete brand change. I believe the name of his practice was Contemporary Smiles. And then that tragedy happened. And because of his faith and his daughter and believing he would see her again. And also, you know, it just very much grounded him with who he was. And so he changed the name to Forever Smiles. Um, fabulous doctor. And what I love, Ben, about what you and I were able to do together with him was we actually took that core story of who he was, and we weaved that messaging through the things that you wrote for him, whether it was website content. We did some press releases. We did. I mean, even ads. Yeah. White papers, everything that we kind of even remember writing. Yeah.

00:12:53 Benjamin Lund: Sorry. I’m totally cutting you off. But I remember writing. There was a there was a section of like, a direct mail card.

00:13:01 Sara Hansen: Yes.

00:13:02 Benjamin Lund: That took me like, more time than it should have to get through it because I’m over here. I’m just bawling my eyes out. I’m just going. I’m like, how do I finish this? And how do I explain and. Yeah. Yeah. Just it was, it really was a privilege to tell your story.

00:13:23 Sara Hansen: Yeah. And what I love about using Doctor Nora’s example is that was that. What else? You know, he did implants. He did lasers. He did all these other things just like the other dentists in the area did. But what I love is that it wasn’t just basic messaging. We took who he was, the experiences he’d been through. We highlighted why he rebranded The practice, why he chose the name Forever Smiles, and that is what those patients connected to. You know, there was this part of the community that because they rallied around him, there were a lot of opportunities that, you know, he gave back to the community, doing different things, um, and helped kind of support the community back with doing free dentistry for different things and hosting events. And so again, what I love is that one core story of who that doctor is really was that grounding material or content for the rest of his marketing and really who he was. And that is the perfect example of doctors. There’s something else in your practice, not just implants, you know, not just, hey, we treat you like family, but what’s the what else about you. So, Ben, because I’m not a fabulous writer, right? I use your skills. I have other strengths. What if we have a doctor that’s like, okay, but I don’t have Ben Lund working in my practice either to help me with marketing. How then can doctors and teams then maybe create content where it still pulls in who they are, but their messaging now is starting to highlight more about them, and not necessarily as that sound like every other doctor, you know, start to sound that AI repetitious, right? With the other things that are going out, what would you suggest for them?

00:15:21 Benjamin Lund: Yeah, authenticity is paramount. You know, if you’re not, um, if you’re not sharing who you are and what you believe in or what makes you different, um, you’re, you’re totally missing. You’re missing an opportunity. Um, you know, maybe maybe maybe you’re just a fun loving crew, and you guys are just wacky, and you have so much fun. But when it comes to dentistry, you get down to business, right? So you work hard and you play hard. You you can that can come across in the content you’re creating. Um, and you know, I, we are, we are talking about AI and how AI can help. Um, it’s, I’m, I don’t take the position that AI is evil and that there’s a problem with it and that I, I would never use it. I think it’s extremely helpful, but there’s a lot that you have to pay attention to because otherwise if you do use AI, you are going to sound the same, especially if the finished product is what AI kicked out, right? It’s not original. It’s it’s exactly what it’ll kick out for somebody else. But you know, when it, when it comes to the doctor and their team, um, authenticity is absolutely the number one thing to, to be concerned with. Um, your, your patients want to know what you think and who you are and they want to have that, they want to be able to make that connection with you before they even meet you. And the practices that have figured that out, they’re, they’re winning. They’re, they’re bringing in the patients and patients are coming in and saying, hey, you guys did that funny video on Instagram and I just I loved your vibe and I really think you can help me with my problem. Those little things really matter.

00:17:45 Regan Robertson: Yeah. Is there, um, like, so if I’m kind of back to square one in my mind, so I’m the business owner trying to save time, right? And I’m like, oh, so now I have to come up with all of these ways to express myself. Um, how do you walk a practice through that? Um, so that they can, um, like, is there, is there a way to incorporate AI usage with writing that doesn’t flatten and make your voice generic and sound like everybody else? Is there a way that you use it in tandem, or do you recommend absolutely no AI for copywriting?

00:18:19 Benjamin Lund: No, I say use it, right? So there is nothing more daunting. And I say this from a writer’s perspective. There’s nothing more daunting than staring at that blank piece of paper going, what do I put on this thing? How do I even start? Like you, you, you, you even start with your name and you rewrite your name twenty times because you do not know what you want to say. But if you say, um, hey, AI, um, this is what I’d like to do. Um, what do you think about this idea or, um, this is the end goal. This is how I would like for this to come across. Give me some ideas and it kicks back, uh, a dozen different ideas or gives you prompts like, oh, gosh, I didn’t even think about that. Or wow, I could, yeah, I could definitely go in that direction. Um, and, and the more detail you provide it, as long as you’re not giving it your social security number, please don’t do that. Um, like the, the, the better the result is, is it’s going to kick out now. I wouldn’t take what it kicks out and copy it and put it onto something like a social media post and say, you know, hey, hey, we did a thing. I wouldn’t do that. Um, we are all becoming editors. Okay. So writers are all essentially turning into editors. Um, and you really have to know what you’re doing, and you really have to pay attention to the patterns that we’ve, we’ve mentioned. Like, um, there’s all of the, those empty words, all those terms that AI likes to use, like quietly or silently or, uh, meaningful or powerful or unlock, um, game changing. That’s a good one. That’s a that’s one that AI likes to use.

00:20:33 Regan Robertson: Honestly, I like honestly, honestly, honestly.

00:20:37 Benjamin Lund: Yeah, honestly. Um, or like the really goofy manufactured drama that it likes to use to kind of drive a point home where it’ll start something. Here’s the thing. Or the truth is, or it may surprise you to know. And then it just goes on. Like those are all total AI tells. And, um, your patients and anybody who’s seeing this content, they are becoming savvy enough to understand that AI wrote that thing. And if they see that, and if they feel that they might get the ick, you know, they might just go, well, this wasn’t genuine or this was definitely written by Chad. I mean, if they’re going to copy and paste, like, what does that tell me about the practice? Are they going to cut corners on my whatever? Uh, I mean, that’s people are actually going there and it’s based off of just a small thought like, yeah, uh, copy and paste from AI. Um, it’s a, it’s a, it’s a little scary there.

00:21:55 Regan Robertson: Here’s one thing that I’ve heard that I would love to, I would love to get your advice on. So when I’m helping people, right. Um, and they put, uh, you know, they put the prompt into the chat or Claude or Gemini and it comes back with content. The, the, the phrase that I’ve heard is, well, it’s, it’s sound. It makes me sound so much smarter. And therefore they want to use that copy because it makes them sound so much smarter. And you said a little bit earlier, there’s a difference between, you know, sounding authoritative and then actually having authority. What advice do you have? Because we know that dentists and team members. Yeah, inherently they’re not writers. Um, you know, the majority of them are not. And their expertise lies in, in the clinical skills that they provide patients. So how do you get people over that hump of, well, this sounds so much smarter or this sound? This is what I wanted to say. So we’re just going to go ahead and use it. Therefore, you know, flattening the tone and removing the authenticity from it.

00:22:58 Benjamin Lund: Yeah, I would say please, please understand that, um, what it just provided to you and, and you’re looking at it going, wow, this really makes me sound awesome. It’s also making the guy down the street sound exactly the same, just as awesome. And he’s sitting there going, man, I, if I use this, it may not be the actual wording or like the same wording that you’re using, but it’s probably similar enough that somebody coming across both are going to say, is this the same practice? It’s it’s weird. What the, what I would suggest is, um, yeah, and I, I, before we, before we hopped on, we, we were talking about this a little bit, the three of us and I, I had said, if it’s, if it’s something that wouldn’t come out of your mouth, don’t write it. Okay. Like, um, what I’ve, what I’ve always suggested to people who have come to me and said, hey, Ben, I’ve got this really cool idea for an article. And then they tell me a little bit about it. The first thing I say to them is, um, get a, get your phone out or a digital tape recorder or, um, whatever you can to record yourself and just talk, go on a walk. Um, the more movement that you, that you can create as you’re generating these ideas, the better the ideas are going to that are going to come out. Just talk into the tape recorder or your phone and it, you don’t have to worry about, um, the words that you say sounding, you know, awesome. I don’t, I personally don’t talk good that I don’t say.

00:24:54 Regan Robertson: That on purpose.

00:24:56 Sara Hansen: I did, he did.

00:24:57 Benjamin Lund: I don’t talk well, I, I, in fact, that’s why I chose the profession of writing because I can, I can communicate better through writing me talk no good. I’m not good at it at all. But if I have an idea, what I will do is I’ll just get my phone and I’ll just start gabbing into it and I’ll just, I’ll just barf everything from my brain into the phone, and then I’ll run it through like a transcription software, and then I’ll pull out some of the ideas that I came up with, and I’ll put it into an outline, and then I’ll take that outline and create something that I, I think has some meaning for somebody else or might help somebody else. Um, if, if you’re struggling, um, and you, you don’t want to use AI. Um, that’s the first thing I would probably suggest. Just, just talk, um, get your ideas out there, get them on the page and then just start moving the words around or.

00:26:05 Sara Hansen: That’s great advice.

00:26:06 Benjamin Lund: Find somebody like me and I’ll help you do it.

00:26:11 Sara Hansen: You’re our secret weapon, Ben.

00:26:14 Regan Robertson: Well, you are phenomenally well at putting people at ease and helping them realize that it’s not as difficult as it appears. There was something that you said that I think is a really important mind, like a mindset shift that that I’ve been when I first got introduced to AI and, and started going down that path enthusiastically, like everybody else, I realized, oh my gosh, I am going to not be a writer anymore or I am going to have to modify my skill set. And if you had told me even two years ago that that on my twenty twenty six bingo card, I would be hired specifically to take the AI out of writing. I never would have believed you. But that is what those are, the requests that I get. But you said, think of it as a tool. So it’s not your copywriter. It’s a tool. And I, I’m curious what suggestive like prompts you could give a doctor. Um, because I love the idea of going outside or walking around turning on your voice memo. Like, that’s brilliant because that transcript can be utilized by AI for sure. Yeah. Um, yeah. But what about those prompts to like get ideas and, um, and really help to put some clay down without actually writing out a whole full, uh, you know, social media calendar or article or post.

00:27:35 Benjamin Lund: Well, just remember, it’s like AI is not a creative genius, okay? It’s, it’s not, it’s, it’s really, like I said earlier, it’s predictive text on steroids. It’s, it’s incredibly sophisticated, but really at its core, uh, it’s really just predicting words that are like most likely to come based on patterns that it’s learned from several other examples that said, okay, you can take that transcript and throw it into AI, and you could even ask it to generate an outline based on the stuff that you just talked about in your phone. Uh, and that’s.

00:28:14 Regan Robertson: Such a great idea.

00:28:15 Benjamin Lund: It’ll do that for you. Um, I wouldn’t go so far as to say, hey, I just talked into my phone for an hour. Turn it into an article. I would, I wouldn’t do that. No, but to help you.

00:28:29 Sara Hansen: That’s what I do to Ben.

00:28:32 Benjamin Lund: Yeah, exactly.

00:28:34 Regan Robertson: You know, some one of the things that I do ask, uh, ask AI is what questions do you have for me? So I’ll stay like I’m just playing hypothetical here, but if I’m writing an article, I would state this is my goal. Like this is what I want to accomplish with the article that I’m, that I’m in the process of writing. And here is my transcript. What questions do you have for me that could help me accomplish this goal? And there was I. I asked it for something separate. And, and I got back, oh, it was over twenty questions. I was floored at how high quality it was. And it really got me thinking in different ways. And I was like, okay, now I’m putting my brain back to use again. This is good.

00:29:13 Benjamin Lund: Exactly. Yeah. To use to prompt AI to prompt you. Yeah. Is it’s that’s one interesting cycle, isn’t it? But like, um, I mean, when it, when it comes down to it, AI is a really cool assistant, but you just don’t, don’t use it for your source material. You are the source material, you know. Yeah. Help it. It’ll help organize your thoughts, but just don’t let it replace your thoughts. Right.

00:29:46 Sara Hansen: Replace your voice. Yeah. Yeah.

00:29:49 Benjamin Lund: Yeah. Don’t. You’re allowing a computer to take your authentic voice?

00:29:55 Sara Hansen: Yeah.

00:29:55 Benjamin Lund: It just gives me the willies, you know?

00:29:58 Sara Hansen: Yeah. So, Ben, I have a question for you. We know that there are a lot of practices who use AI within marketing. And, I mean, even we can create really cool things, you know, graphically with AI and stuff like that. So AI is not a bad thing. But do you have any questions that you would tell doctors to ask their current marketing company about how AI is being used to create their content? So if doctors are listening to this like, oh wait, I think my marketing company is using AI. What questions would you recommend they ask their current marketing company on how they’re creating the content with it?

00:30:39 Benjamin Lund: Well, I think we can probably do away with the question, are you using AI? Because I think you’re going to just hear a resounding yes across the board, right? Um, but it’s how they’re using AI. Um, and what are they, what are they inputting? Um, and, um, like, what do the finished products look like that, um, AI is touching and what are you doing to help differentiate? Yeah. Because yeah, everybody’s everybody’s using AI. Um, and there, there are definitely some marketing firms out there that, um, to save time, they’re using it and it’s kicking out an end product and. It may come out later on down the line in a few years. Like somebody could look back on this content and they would go, well, this is obviously a robot written that’s, that’s awful. Um, but yeah, it’s, it’s, it’s just in how they, they use it. And, and if, if the marketing, um, firm can’t come back with a detailed response in how their use using AI and what they’re using it for to um produce your campaigns, um, or to write your story. Um, um, might raise a little concern. Yeah.

00:32:23 Sara Hansen: Yeah. So Ben, before a doctor allows content to be published, you know, under their name, what is a question that they should ask themselves?

00:32:37 Benjamin Lund: Well, um. If, if it’s, if it’s content that somebody else has written in their name, they should have total access to that content and they should have total editing, um, access to it. Um, I wouldn’t integrity is everything, right? Like. Yeah. And, and, and if somebody is producing content in your name that you aren’t approving, you should be approving every single thing. And you should also know, like what some of the tells are, some of the AI tells, um, like we had talked about like some of the phrasing, some of those words, the polarity statements. It’s not x, it’s y. If your content has any of that in it, like even in dashes, right?

00:33:32 Sara Hansen: Yeah.

00:33:33 Benjamin Lund: The total total tell so many people.

00:33:36 Regan Robertson: Are mourning the Em dashes though.

00:33:38 Benjamin Lund: Oh man, I miss those. I used to use that in my writing all the time. It would help break up sentences or provide clarity to something that I was trying to say. Now I can’t use it because that’s all chat and Claude and Gemini and that’s. They all use it and it makes me sad. But anyway, they’re getting getting back to my point, like, um, doctor, you need to approve everything that is going out. Um, and don’t, don’t pass the buck. Um, this is in your name and if it, if it’s not going out. Right. Um, I mean it’s, it’s all going to fall back on you and that if it goes out and it, it’s kind of giving the people the IC. Um, just saying. Yeah.

00:34:33 Regan Robertson: When, when, when a doctor goes out, say to their local newspaper or local magazine, or even if they go within dentistry and create an article. Um, you know, to Sarah’s point, it’s one thing to know with integrity whether or not you’ve written it with AI, do you have to legally say that it was, you know, created with AI if you use it? Or is it kind of still the Wild West? Like you can? You don’t have to worry about any of that right now.

00:34:58 Benjamin Lund: It’s kind of the Wild West. I don’t know that it’s I guess it really depends on the, um, the publication that you’re working with or how savvy they are, it may come to a point where you may, there may be laws set in place that you legally have to say this was written with the assistance of AI or something along those lines. Um, right now I’m not, I’m not seeing that you have to do that, but that may end up showing up down the line. Um, and that could end up being that sort of scarlet letter. Um, like if, if, uh, if an article has to say I wrote, you know, I wrote this with the help of AI. Well, people may just not read it because, well, what do they want to hear from a robot for?

00:35:55 Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, I, I received a really.

00:35:57 Regan Robertson: Um, a really great promotional email. And it was, it was in the form of like a blog post from a photographer that I have used in the past, and it was a really touching short story style email. And at the very bottom of it, it was really well written. And at the bottom of it it said, this is one hundred percent human written by me. You know, I was here. Yeah, yeah. And it was, it was fascinating how we strive for connection because in reading that, I immediately thought, wow, she took the time to craft this story for me. And I’m wondering if that is in the wave of the future, actually a way to provide a premium product to be authentic in your imperfection. Um, maybe not fully grammatically correct, but you are, you show up as you are. And to your point, Ben, as you say, um, speaking how you talk. Um, and that that creates, um, this sense of wow, like the time is valuable for all of us. And you invested that in this message. I will therefore, you know.

00:37:01 Sara Hansen: Yeah.

00:37:01 Regan Robertson: Give it more of my space, my attention.

00:37:04 Benjamin Lund: It’s it’s like the digital version of the handwritten note. Like, wow, this person actually took the time to care about the message that they’re sending to me. I should pay attention to this. You know, it’s like when you got that handwritten note after a party or something, you know, like, hey, Sarah, I had a great time. Can’t wait to see you next week. Like, ah, it’s it’s it’s touching.

00:37:29 Regan Robertson: Yeah. Is that something?

00:37:33 Sara Hansen: Go ahead. Regan.

00:37:33 Regan Robertson: Is that something that you would recommend that that people put on articles that they write or blog posts or in communication with patients like, hey, by the way, we wrote this, or would you say you can leave it off?

00:37:46 Benjamin Lund: I mean, I, I don’t think it’s necessary. Uh, right now, but there may, there may come a time, uh, that, that we, that we may have to, in order to just like, let everybody know that. Yes. No, sorry. Uh, our, our little pet robot didn’t put this together for us. Um, I guess it really depends on the content. Like if it’s an article and at the end you say, hey, I wrote this myself. Um, I don’t know if that’s really going to make a hill of beans difference because they may just be there for the, the content, you know, um, especially if what you’re sharing is super valuable and important to them. Um, but if it’s something like personal and yeah, you can have a little fun with it. Um, doesn’t hurt, you know, might even make them smile at the end. Yeah.

00:38:40 Regan Robertson: Yeah.

00:38:42 Sara Hansen: You know, Ben, I think one of the biggest takeaways for me today listening to you is, you know, I, I had the thought and anyone who gets an email from me on Fridays, you probably know what it says, which always is happy Friday. Like every time I sent an email on Fridays. But what I love about that little piece, right, is that there’s no way I. If I put that into chat and said, hey, I need to email my client, there’s no way chat is ever going to pick that up. Right. It’s a little nuance to myself. So what I love is that, you know, doctors speak to patients, especially during consultations, um, during treatment plan, um, you know, arrangements from even the treatment coordinator in the practice. I’m sure the office manager has language. What would be really cool if an office was like, we don’t have Benjamin Lund in our practice writing amazing content. But what I love is you talked about starting to feed it exactly what you say, you know, adding those pieces into it so that now one thing I’ve learned about AI is it learns what you like, your style, you know, it wants to please you, right? That’s kind of the age of the robot. Sort of.

00:39:59 Benjamin Lund: Yeah, it sort of does like it really like depending on what you’re writing. Right. Yeah. Um, it may know what you want in the beginning, but, uh, as it goes on, it’s going to continue to fall back on the patterns because. Right. Right. Um, you know, it doesn’t really have memory. Um, they say that it does, but all it wants to do is solve your problem right away. And it may sound like it knows who you are and how you write. And this is how, what you’re going to say. But as you go down, you’re going to notice that it’s using familiar patterns, that it continues to fall back on. And it’s then all of a sudden you get something that we like to call AI slop. And it just devolves.

00:40:51 Regan Robertson: It makes me think of a pig trough.

00:40:53 Benjamin Lund: I know that’s what.

00:40:53 Sara Hansen: I that’s why I was giggling. I’m like, that sounds like all the leftovers that you know? No. So, like, it makes me think of all these, like, leftover words that sound really smart, but they’re kind of not in a way, you know.

00:41:08 Benjamin Lund: It’s like you’ve got this trough of five dollar words that it’s just like.

00:41:12 Sara Hansen: Picking.

00:41:12 Benjamin Lund: Its favorites from and just throwing it into your, into your soup.

00:41:16 Regan Robertson: Oh. But to be clear, that does not mean use fancy words, right? We don’t want to increase cognitive load.

00:41:23 Benjamin Lund: But no, we, we, we want to get our, um, our thoughts across as simply and with as much care as we possibly can. Um, so that we’re, we’re changing minds and hearts. Yeah. Um, yeah.

00:41:40 Regan Robertson: I have an uncomfortable question for us.

00:41:43 Sara Hansen: Oh.

00:41:44 Regan Robertson: Well, many practices use use an agency. So they use a marketing agency. And, um, and if you’re listening right now and you have one, how are you going to know, uh, whether or not that organization is using AI to generate your copy. Um, I know you’ve taught us several things to look out for today to be able to ask, hey, uh, we’re having a lot of polarity statements in our copy. Uh, are there questions that we can ask?

00:42:12 Benjamin Lund: You know, it really depends on how they’re, they’re using it. I don’t know if there’s specific questions you can ask. What it may come down to is every, every piece. And this is why I said earlier, doctor, you should be approving what goes out in your name unless you have like total trust in the marketing agency that you’re using because you know that they’re not going to send something out that’s going to make you look foolish. Um, but I think it’s really going to be like, it’s going to come down to a sort of a case by case basis. I think, um, my marketing agencies may, may use AI to improve the work that they’re creating or say that they improve the work they’re creating, or reduce the amount of work that they have to do. And both of those things can be true, right? Like, um, some companies will use AI to produce more thoughtful work or, um, use it to sort of like eliminate thinking. But if they’re using it to do everything, that’s a problem. So, um, yeah, I think it really depends on the project itself. Um, yeah. You know, if it’s, if it’s using polarity statements like I’ll, I’ll receive articles from people. Hey, Ben, look at this thing I wrote. And then I get it. And like the first off, the, the headline will say beyond whatever the thing is. And if you use beyond in a, in a headline, immediately I’m like, uh, oh, they may have consulted AI for this. Uh, and then, you know, the, the first couple lines are polarity statements or, you know, hey, it’s doctor, it’s, it’s, it’s not your team, it’s your communication. That is, it’s um, yeah, that, that’s the, you, you don’t want to put that out there.

00:44:12 Sara Hansen: Um, yeah.

00:44:14 Benjamin Lund: You know, it’s, it’s not going to provide you with original information, but um, anyway.

00:44:21 Regan Robertson: So Ben, we all know that a lot of listeners, a lot of doctors use marketing agencies for content creation and all of the marketing collateral, the campaigns going out. I mean, that’s, uh, no surprise there. What can we ask, uh, what can we give our listeners to ask so that they can feel confident that the collateral that’s being created really captures their authentic voice and isn’t overly relying on AI? Because as a doctor, you’re busy. You don’t have time to probably. I mean, I love how you said they should read every single line, but let’s be real. I don’t know that they’re going to look at every social media post or every digital ad going out or, you know, the the ad going out in the church bulletin. So what are some questions that can help them save time and, and feel confident?

00:45:09 Benjamin Lund: Yeah, that, you know, yes. The dog I’m earlier when I said, you know, doctor, you should approve every line. I know you don’t have the time to do this. And that’s, that’s why you need to work with the marketing company that you can trust. Um, so, you know, you need to ask questions like, um, where are you using AI in, in my content process? Um, how are you learning my voice and my opinions? Where are you getting that from? Is it from interviews that we’ve had? Is it from videos that I’ve produced? Um, conversations over the phone? Like, how are you learning my voice? Um, is this content specifically created for me? Or was it just some cookie cutter content that was generated? Right. Um, are, are you working with other clients that are asking for similar content? Um, uh, are like, are there other clients receiving the same content? Right. Um, who, who on your team reviews content before it’s published? Um, who’s checking the accuracy of the content? Like you don’t want to put out anything that’s, uh, totally untrue to what you do, right? Um, you know, like what, what do you do if it doesn’t sound like me? If it doesn’t sound like my practice, how are you fixing that? Um, but like the, the best question I would probably ask is, what did you learn about me that made this content? Specifically mine. How does this specifically belong to me?

00:46:58 Sara Hansen: Yeah.

00:46:59 Benjamin Lund: Those are things I probably ask Ben.

00:47:03 Sara Hansen: I really appreciate you, you know, opening up the conversation for us about AI. What I’ve learned from you is AI really is a tool. It’s a tool to help make our processes a little more, you know, manageable when the team’s got a lot of things happening. But it shouldn’t be the entire content and core of what we’re doing within our voice and how we stand out amongst the competition in the community. And so I really appreciate you bringing your thoughts, your expertise to this subject. Where it is AI is the buzzword of, I would say, the last eighteen months, everyone’s talking about AI. Um, and so I appreciate you helping our doctors to really learn how to navigate what that looks like and how they can create content that does sound more like them and also apply some of these tactics to help kind of take away some of the chaos as well.

00:48:06 Benjamin Lund: That’s my pleasure.

00:48:09 Regan Robertson: Benny, thank you so much. I want to turn I want to have a bonus episode. I would love for the three of us to sit down again and come back with some dental ads that we can point out and show in action what this looks like.

00:48:25 Sara Hansen: Let’s do.

00:48:26 Speaker 6: It. Uh, I love that idea.

00:48:28 Regan Robertson: Listeners, do you have an ad, a social media post, uh, a website landing page, something on it that you’ve created with AI that you would like some help with so that your authentic voice comes through, uh, email, email us. Sarah S a r at H a r a at is it Phoenix Dental agency dot com?

00:48:50 Sara Hansen: Yes. Yep. Phoenix Dental agency dot com.

00:48:53 Regan Robertson: Yeah. Shoot Sarah a note and let us know if there’s something you want us to review on our next podcast. Benjamin, did you know we’d be signing you up for another episode?

00:49:03 Speaker 6: I’m I’m I’m.

00:49:04 Benjamin Lund: Game. Let’s do it. This is fun.

00:49:06 Sara Hansen: You’re a fan favorite, Benny. Thank you everyone.

00:49:10 Speaker 7: Hey, thanks for joining us on Everyday Practices Dental podcast. It would mean the world to me if you could leave us a like or a review on iTunes or go to Productive Dentist Academy through Google and leave us a review there. You know, we are here each week to talk about what’s possible when you leave your practice with clarity and courage. If you are ready to build a business that supports your life and not the other way around, investment grade practice coaching powered by Productive Dentist Academy can help. Visit Investment-grade practice dot com to schedule your free sixty minute coaching session so you can start designing the practice and lifestyle you’ve been dreaming about all along.